arXiv subjects

V. L. Quito

Publications and source records attributed to V. L. Quito.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Symmetry tuning topological states of an axion insulator with noncollinear magnetic order

Topological properties of quantum materials are intimately related to symmetry. Here, we tune the magnetic order of the axion insulator candidate EuIn$_2$As$_2$ from its broken-helix ground state to the field-polarized phase by applying an in-plane magnetic field. Using results from neutron diffraction and magnetization measurements with ab inito theory and symmetry analysis, we determine how the field tunes the magnetic symmetry within individual magnetic domains and examine the resulting changes to the topological surface states and hinge states existing on edges shared by certain surfaces hosting gapped Dirac states. We predict field-tunable complex and domain-specific hinge-state patterns, with some crystal surfaces undergoing a field-induced topological phase transition. We further find that domain walls have pinned hinge states when intersecting certain crystal surfaces, providing another channel for tuning the chiral-charge-transport pathways.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Theory for Cd$_3$As$_2$ thin films in the presence of magnetic fields

We present a theory for thin films of the Dirac semimetal Cd$_3$As$_2$ in the presence of magnetic fields. We show that, above a critical thickness, specific subbands $n$ of thin film Cd$_3$As$_2$ are in a quantum spin Hall insulator regime and study their response to in- and out-of-plane magnetic fields. We find that sufficiently large in-plane Zeeman fields drive the system toward a 2D Dirac semimetal regime, provided the field is directed perpendicular to a high-symmetry mirror plane. For other directions, we find the Dirac points to be weakly gapped. We further investigate how the system responds to finite out-of-plane field components, both starting from the quantum spin Hall regime at small in-plane fields and from the 2D Dirac semimetal regimes at larger in-plane fields, addressing recent experimental observations in [A. C. Lygo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 130 046201 (2023)] and [B. Guo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 046601(2023)].

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Discovery of an Unconventional Quantum Echo by Interference of Higgs Coherence

Nonlinearities in quantum systems are fundamentally characterized by the interplay of phase coherences, their interference, and state transition amplitudes. Yet the question of how quantum coherence and interference manifest in transient, massive Higgs excitations, prevalent within both the quantum vacuum and superconductors, remains elusive. One hallmark example is photon echo, enabled by the generation, preservation, and retrieval of phase coherences amid multiple excitations. Here we reveal an unconventional quantum echo arising from the Higgs coherence in superconductors, and identify distinctive signatures attributed to Higgs anharmonicity. A terahertz pulse-pair modulation of the superconducting gap generates a "time grating" of coherent Higgs population, which scatters echo signals distinct from conventional spin- and photon-echoes in atoms and semiconductors. These manifestations appear as Higgs echo spectral peaks occurring at frequencies forbidden by equilibrium particle-hole symmetry, an asymmetric delay in the echo formation from the dynamics of the "reactive" superconducting state, and negative time signals arising from Higgs-quasiparticle anharmonic coupling. The Higgs interference and anharmonicity control the decoherence of driven superconductivity and may enable applications in quantum memory and entanglement.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Polarization as a tuning parameter for Floquet engineering: magnetism in the honeycomb, square, and triangular Mott insulators

Magnetic exchange couplings can be tuned by coupling to periodic light, where the frequency and amplitude are typically varied: a process known as Floquet engineering. The polarization of the light is also important, and in this paper, we show how different polarizations, including several types of unpolarized light, can tune the exchange couplings in distinct ways. Using unpolarized light, for example, it is possible to tune the material without breaking either time-reversal or any lattice symmetries. To illustrate these effects generically, we consider single-band Hubbard models at half-filling on the honeycomb, square and triangular lattices. We derive the effective Heisenberg spin models to fourth order in perturbation theory for arbitrary fixed polarizations, and several types of unpolarized light that preserve time-reversal and lattice symmetries. Coupling these models to periodic light tunes first, second and third neighbor exchange couplings, as well as ring exchange terms on the square and triangular lattices. Circularly polarized light induces chiral fields for the honeycomb and triangular lattices, which favors non-coplanar magnetism and potential chiral spin liquids. We discuss how to maximize the enhancement of the couplings without inducing heating.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2021

Floquet engineering correlated materials with unpolarized light

Floquet engineering is a powerful tool that drives materials with periodic light. Traditionally, the light is monochromatic, with amplitude, frequency, and polarization varied. We introduce Floquet engineering via unpolarized light built from quasi-monochromatic light, and show how it can modify strongly correlated systems, while preserving the original symmetries. Different types of unpolarized light can realize different strongly correlated phases As an example, we treat insulating magnetic materials on a triangular lattice and show how unpolarized light can induce a Dirac spin liquid.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Emergent SU(N) symmetry in disordered SO(N) spin chains

Strongly disordered spin chains invariant under the SO(N) group are shown to display random-singlet phases with emergent SU(N) symmetry without fine tuning. The phases with emergent SU(N) symmetry are of two kinds: one has a ground state formed of randomly distributed singlets of strongly bound pairs of SO(N) spins (a `mesonic' phase), while the other has a ground state composed of singlets made out of strongly bound integer multiples of N SO(N) spins (a `baryonic' phase). The established mechanism is general and we put forward the cases of $\mathrm{N}=2,3,4$ and $6$ as prime candidates for experimental realizations in material compounds and cold-atoms systems. We display universal temperature scaling and critical exponents for susceptibilities distinguishing these phases and characterizing the enlarging of the microscopic symmetries at low energies.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

A non-Abelian twist to integer quantum Hall states

Through a theoretical coupled wire model, we construct strongly correlated electronic \emph{integer} quantum Hall states. As a distinguishing feature, these states support electric and thermal Hall transport violating the Wiedemann-Franz law as $\left(κ_{xy}/σ_{xy}\right)/\left[\left(π^{2}k_{B}^{2}T\right)/3e^{2}\right]<1$.We propose a new Abelian incompressible fluid at filling $ν=16$ that supports a bosonic chiral $(E_{8})_{1}$ conformal field theory at the edge and is intimately related to topological paramagnets in (3+1)D. We further show that this topological phase can be partitioned into two non-Abelian quantum Hall states at filling $ν=8$, each carrying bosonic chiral $(G_{2})_{1}$ or $(F_{4})_{1}$ edge theories, and hosting Fibonacci anyonic excitations in the bulk. Finally, we discover a new notion of particle-hole conjugation based on the $E_{8}$ state that relates the $G_{2}$ and $F_{4}$ Fibonacci states.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Highly-symmetric random one-dimensional spin models

The interplay of disorder and interactions is a challenging topic of condensed matter physics, where correlations are crucial and exotic phases develop. In one spatial dimension, a particularly successful method to analyze such problems is the strong-disorder renormalization group (SDRG). This method, which is asymptotically exact in the limit of large disorder, has been successfully employed in the study of several phases of random magnetic chains. Here we develop an SDRG scheme capable to provide in-depth information on a large class of strongly disordered one-dimensional magnetic chains with a global invariance under a generic continuous group. Our methodology can be applied to any Lie-algebra valued spin Hamiltonian, in any representation. As examples, we focus on the physically relevant cases of SO(N) and Sp(N) magnetism, showing the existence of different randomness-dominated phases. These phases display emergent SU(N) symmetry at low energies and fall in two distinct classes, with meson-like or baryon-like characteristics. Our methodology is here explained in detail and helps to shed light on a general mechanism for symmetry emergence in disordered systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Origin of the butterfly magnetoresistance in a Dirac nodal-line system

We report a study on the magnetotransport properties and on the Fermi surfaces (FS) of the ZrSi(Se,Te) semimetals. Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations, in absence of spin orbit coupling (SOC), reveal that both the Se and the Te compounds display Dirac nodal lines (DNL) close to the Fermi level $\varepsilon_F$ at symmorphic and non-symmorphic positions, respectively. We find that the geometry of their FSs agrees well with DFT predictions. ZrSiSe displays low residual resistivities, pronounced magnetoresistivity, high carrier mobilities, and a butterfly-like angle-dependent magnetoresistivity (AMR), although its DNL is not protected against gap opening. As in Cd$_3$As$_2$, its transport lifetime is found to be 10$^2$ to 10$^3$ times larger than its quantum one. ZrSiTe, which possesses a protected DNL, displays conventional transport properties. Our evaluation indicates that both compounds most likely are topologically trivial. Nearly angle-independent effective masses with strong angle dependent quantum lifetimes lead to the butterfly AMR in ZrSiSe.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2016

Random SU(2)-symmetric spin-$S$ chains

We study the low-energy physics of a broad class of time-reversal invariant and SU(2)-symmetric one-dimensional spin-S systems in the presence of quenched disorder via a strong-disorder renormalization-group technique. We show that, in general, there is an antiferromagnetic phase with an emergent SU(2S+1) symmetry. The ground state of this phase is a random singlet state in which the singlets are formed by pairs of spins. For integer spins, there is an additional antiferromagnetic phase which does not exhibit any emergent symmetry (except for S=1). The corresponding ground state is a random singlet one but the singlets are formed mostly by trios of spins. In each case the corresponding low-energy dynamics is activated, i.e., with a formally infinite dynamical exponent, and related to distinct infinite-randomness fixed points. The phase diagram has two other phases with ferromagnetic tendencies: a disordered ferromagnetic phase and a large spin phase in which the effective disorder is asymptotically finite. In the latter case, the dynamical scaling is governed by a conventional power law with a finite dynamical exponent.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2015

Emergent SU(3) symmetry in random spin-1 chains

We show that generic SU(2)-invariant random spin-1 chains have phases with an emergent SU(3) symmetry. We map out the full zero-temperature phase diagram and identify two different phases: (i) a conventional random singlet phase (RSP) of strongly bound spin pairs (SU(3) "mesons") and (ii) an unconventional RSP of bound SU(3) "baryons", which are formed, in the great majority, by spin trios located at random positions. The emergent SU(3) symmetry dictates that susceptibilities and correlation functions of both dipolar and quadrupolar spin operators have the same asymptotic behavior.

cond-mat.str-el↗